One of Us
by Akela Victoire
Summary: Squib!Harry AU. One word in Dumbledore's letter convinces Petunia that raising Harry doesn't have to be as terrible as she thought.
I wrote this in less than two hours for **_The Most Horrible Competition Ever_ ** on the **_Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges_** forum. The mini contest was the first person to write a Squib!Harry AU with a minimum of 400 words gets the item.

So basically, this is what my rush work was like, in an effort to be first.

I hope you like it anyway!

* * *

When Petunia opened the door that cold November morning so many years ago and discovered that the baby on her front step was her nephew, her first instinct was to immediately ship him off to an orphanage.

She wanted nothing to do with the spawn of her sister Lily and her husband James.

Their freakishness was best kept far away from normal people, like her _own_ family.

Then, she re-read the letter attached to the blankets swaddling him.

Dumbledore wrote about the oh-so-great sacrifice that her _precious_ sister and her husband had made, giving up their lives (she felt a slight twinge at these words- not that she'd ever admit it) in order to protect their son and saving Britain's Wizarding community from some crackpot called Lord Voldemort (a name she vaguely remembered from _her_ letters- not that she'd admit to that either!), who was now banished to wherever they went when curses backfired on them horribly.

He wanted her to take him in and treat him as her own.

As if!

Vernon would never allow it!

Besides, if one really wanted to make an argument for taking in an orphaned child, abandoning him on some outdoor steps on a cold October night/November morning was hardly the way to go.

Suppose she had taken him to an orphanage somewhere? Who would be there to stop her?

Blood protections... taking him in would apparently keep both him and her family safe from the evil freaks who had followed the man who'd tried to kill him in the first place.

He was probably even _more_ freakish than usual if he'd survived a curse that normally killed their kind upon contact!

Then she saw the word that changed everything.

 _Squib._

Harry was a _Squib._

Someone born to Wizarding parents without magic of their own.

So...

She remembered looking down at the child while Vernon ranted and raved about not having him there.

Harry had no magic.

He, despite having freak parents, was _not_ one of the freaks himself.

He was normal.

Just like her.

No magical powers whatsoever.

He wouldn't be turning her beloved Dudders into a pig or some other horrid thing anytime soon.

No exploding glass, no hair going through all the colours of the rainbow...

It was that single word in the letter that changed her whole mindset towards her nephew.

"He stays, Vernon. The boy stays," she remembered saying, raising a hand to cut off her husband's protests. "he's not like them. He's what they call a squib. He doesn't have any of their... _freakishness._ "

Vernon raised an eyebrow. "He isn't? He's one of us?"

Petunia nodded.

Vernon paused to think.

"Well, I suppose the boy can stay. If he ever hurts Dudley though, he's out of here!" he said finally.

She could agree to that.

Raising Lily's magical son would have been difficult.

A _normal_ son, however...

 _That_ she could live with.

"You mean... my parents weren't killed by a terrorist?" Harry's eyes went wide as Petunia sat him down on the morning of his eleventh birthday and told him the full truth about his heritage.

"He was a terrorist, darling." Petunia patted her nephew's head fondly. "It's just that he used magic to do it. He was a... magical terrorist. It was his freakishness that stole your family away from you. Their freakishness let your family get caught in the crossfire. That's why it was decided that it would be best for you here. Without magic like them, you'd be a freak to them. _An outcast._ You would be happier growing up with us..."

"But... Harry's _normal,_ right? And he'll be safe with us here in the normal world?" Dudley asked, seated next to his cousin on some cushions on the floor, looking up at his mother anxiously. "Harry is like my best friend! I don't want anything to happen to him!"

"Dumbledore said that he would be safe and protected here, once we took him in and loved him." Petunia reassured her son, happy to see that he and Harry got along now, despite the rough start to their relationship.

"That's not going to be a problem." Dudley grabbed Harry and before she could blink, the two boys were play wrestling all over the floor.

Petunia shook her head and chuckled as she let the boys have at it.

When she entered the kitchen, it was to see Vernon there, casually reading the newspaper.

"So, how well did he take it?" her husband queried.

"Rather well, actually," Petunia poured herself a cup of tea and sat at the table with him. "and so did Dudley, for that matter. I left them rolling about on the floor in there."

Vernon chuckled. "Boys will be boys, I suppose. I can't believe I was so against taking him in the first place. He's not so bad. Good for Dudders too. Like brothers, they are."

Petunia smiled as she finished her tea and got up to see about Harry's birthday party later that day.

 _"I'm glad that he's one of us."_


End file.
